I think the reality of neuroscience and behavioral research at this point in time is that it's just really difficult to translate neuro -> behavior and thought

I think the reality of neuroscience and behavioral research at this point in time is that it's just really difficult to translate neuro -> behavior and thought processes. There are some decently well researched learning methods, such as spaced repetition and enhancing depth of knowledge but we don't have a totally clear picture on why these things work well. There are suspicions of course, such as how deeper knowledge of a subject is able to integrate the information into more parts of the network, but afaik the actual biochemical mechanisms and how those translate into network dynamics and recall for a lot of memory and learning functions are still fairly unknown. If anyone knows of some solid studies (preferably using humans) I would be more than happy to read them, learning and memory is a fascinating area of neuroscience.